


Hell or Flying

by b_l_u_e__n_i_g_h_t_s



Category: NCT (Band), SuperM (Korea Band), WAYV
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Falling In Love, Friends to Lovers, Happy Ending, Healthy Relationships, Homophobia, Hurt/Comfort, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Mental Health Issues, imposter syndrome
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:35:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25829776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/b_l_u_e__n_i_g_h_t_s/pseuds/b_l_u_e__n_i_g_h_t_s
Summary: Sicheng smiles at Ten in the dim light and he looks like the sun, way more beautiful than anyone has the right to this early in the morning. This, too, has been part of the morning routine for as long as Ten can remember – Sicheng smiling at him and Ten losing his fucking mind over it.[A story about healing, about being brave, about love.]
Relationships: Dong Si Cheng | WinWin/Chittaphon Leechaiyapornkul | Ten
Comments: 36
Kudos: 108





	1. Those Nights.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Cause aren't we all just looking for a little bit of hope these days?" *

The doctors have promised Ten again and again that his injury is perfectly healed, that he shouldn’t feel any pain whatsoever. But he swears he can feel it, a phantom pain that drives needles into the softest, most vulnerable parts of his knee, until he wants to scream scream scream.

But of course, he doesn’t. No, he sits still and composed, tying not to let anyone see how very freaked out he is, how much he wants to run and hide. It is not their first meeting for the “Super Team” SM are setting up for a big American record company. So Ten should be used to the faces he sees around him, but every time he looks up and across the table all his brain supplies is: ‘That is LEE TAEMIN OH MY FUCKING GOD.’ Which makes him freak out even more. Which makes the strange echo of a pain long healed flare right back up in his knee.

Ten still thinks it is most likely a mistake that they asked him to be part of this group. Because across from him Taemin and Kai are leaning into each other, clearly trying to pay attention even though they look tired as fuck. They are legends, both. And Ten tried to copy their moves when he was still a kid, listened to their music after his first ever heartbreak in what seems like a different life back in Bangkok. How? How is he ever going to share a stage with them? Who in their right mind would want him to dance next to them? He is going to mess up so, so bad. He is not nearly good enough for any of this, is reminded every day how much he lacks, just how much he doesn’t measure up. Ten feels so young and out of his league, all the time, so lost and strange and far from home.

The meeting drags on and on and the pain in Ten’s knee gets worse and it is getting more and more difficult to remain calm and composed on the outside. Taemin falls asleep twice, but none of the very important business people at the table give him a hard time, because he apologizes sweetly and bashfully when Kai nudges him awake and everyone laughs and falls a little bit more in love with him. How one man can ooze this much charm without even trying, Ten will never know.

After the meeting finally ends, Ten goes back to the practice rooms all the way in the basement of the intimidatingly fancy building instead of returning to the dorms and eating dinner. He feels a little bit more at home in the dingy practice room that everyone avoids because apparently Taemin saw a ghost in it once. The mirrored wall and the scuffed-up floor feel more like home than any other place in the city at least. Ten changes into comfortable dance clothes and starts to go through some of the more difficult parts of the new choreographies he needs to memorize. He messes up and starts over again. Messes up and starts over again. Messes up and starts over again, until he is dripping with sweat and his body is about to give out. His knee feels like someone has set his tendons on fire and he can feel it trembling every time he puts any real weight on it. It is late at night when his body finally doesn’t keep him up anymore. He pulls on a warm sweater and sits on the practice room floor for a while because he can’t get up. He thinks he might be crying, but maybe it’s just sweat rolling down his face, he really can’t tell anymore.

He crawls to the elevators, gets himself upright enough to limp out of the building and make his way to the dorms. When he finally gets there, he downs two protein shakes in the dark kitchen. How late is it? Is everyone else asleep already?

Ten takes a quick shower, sitting on the floor, curled up against the wall so he can lean his swimming head against the cool tiles. His body is shutting down, but the warm water soothes his muscles at least a little bit. Still, his right hamstring cramps up when he gets out of the shower. He bites his tongue hard to keep from yelling out in pain. He massages the stupid muscle and swallows the blood welling up in his mouth.

When Ten finally collapses into bed he is so sore that he has to lie very still so it won’t hurt even more. He tries to fall asleep, he is dead tired. But his mind is replaying things said in the meeting earlier and bits of the choreography he has been working on, random memories of mistakes he has made, moments when he acted like an idiot on camera, moments when he was so embarrassed he wanted to die. Shut up, he thinks, shut up, shut up, shut up I just want to go to fucking sleep!

After an eternity of lying still and letting his mind conjure up scary things, Ten looks at the time. Only four hours until he needs to be up and moving again. Fuck it, that’s not enough time to rest. He needs to fall asleep now. Now. NOW. His jaw aches because he has been grinding his teeth so hard.

Stupid, childish tears start to pool in Ten’s eyes. He is so tired. He is so tired and so lost and so far away from everything he knows, he is so alone and out of his depths. The world warps and recedes and Ten can almost feel himself hovering a few inches above his body, losing touch with reality.

Ten’s mattress dips.

Sicheng touches his fingers to Ten’s face, the pads soft and warm. Ten’s whole body is wound so tight, his muscles locked and his skin itching with pinpricks of pain, that he can hardly make himself move enough to make room for Sicheng on his bed.

When he finally manages to scoot back and turn to face the wall, Sicheng curls himself around him, fitting Ten’s smaller frame into his body. He buries his face in Ten’s neck and starts to stroke his hand over Ten’s arm, his touch firm enough to keep Ten here, tie him to reality, make his body and the world both feel real again. The gentle strokes start to make Ten’s muscles release a little bit of their crazy tension. Up and down. Up and down. Up and down. Up and down.

Ten inhales deeply, lets the air out as slowly as he can, tries to match his breathing to Sicheng’s slow, deep breaths. Shame burns deep in Ten’s chest, shame for how very much he feels he is lacking. Does Sicheng suspect, yet? Suspect that he is an imposter? Ten lives in fear of being found out, of the others noticing how many mistakes he actually makes.

Ten tries not to think about it, about the day everything will inevitably come crashing down around him. Instead, he focuses on breathing, on the way the tension is slowly bleeding out of his body. Sicheng is warm, the weight of his arm around Ten’s waist holding him in this moment, helping to slow down his thoughts. Ten can feel the knot in his mind unraveling, until his thoughts become dreams and his breathing is slow, slow, his heart matching the pace of Sicheng’s beating against the soft, vulnerable space between Ten’s shoulder blades.

*

A soft whoosh of warm air gently wakes Ten after too little sleep. Sicheng is shaking out his blanket, making his bed up neat the way he always does right after he gets up in the morning. The moment Ten first met Sicheng he was so well behaved and poised and fucking perfect that Ten immediately wanted to mess him up a little. Ten blinks into the almost-darkness (Sicheng doesn’t turn on the light until Ten’s alarm goes off) and stretches his hurting body. He is alone in his bed, he always wakes up alone, wondering if he dreamed the arms holding him, the steady beat of a heart against his back. His knee hurts like a motherfucker. Ten can’t suppress a groan at the pain when he moves his leg under the blanket. Shit, he may have done some serious damage with all the extra training hours he’s been putting in.

Sicheng is in his usual black flowing pants and tight white T-shirt. It is an outfit that closely resembles what he was required to wear in dance school for years. Is it comforting for him to wear something so familiar? Or is he just so used to looking like this that he hasn’t thought to buy something different ever since he left school? Ten thinks Sicheng would look great in lavender. Or with some embroidered flowers on his sleeves. But he keeps his thoughts to himself.

Ten turns onto his side and watches Sicheng go through his morning stretching routine. It is one he was taught in dance school and that he follows every morning after making his bed. After, he will take a shower, brush his teeth for exactly 120 seconds, get dressed in more of the same monochrome clothes, and sit down in the kitchen to have a healthy breakfast that tastes so bland Ten has only ever tried it once before declaring it an affront to the senses.

Ten’s alarm beeps just as Sicheng is pulling his leg up into a deep split. Ten grapples for his phone, silences the alarm.

“Good morning,” Sicheng says in beautiful Mandarin. Ten says it back in Thai, because Sicheng asked him to speak Thai to him so he can learn some of Ten’s mother tongue. Sicheng smiles at Ten in the dim light and he looks like the sun, way more beautiful than anyone has the right to this early in the morning. This, too, has been part of the morning routine for as long as Ten can remember – Sicheng smiling at him and Ten losing his fucking mind over it.

When Sicheng is in the shower, Ten buries his face in his palms. His cheeks are warm, because apparently he still blushes like an idiot every morning because he forgot how beautiful Sicheng really is. It’s as if his brain can’t quite process it, so his memory stores dulled-down, low-res images of Sicheng and they never match up to reality. Ten groans and gets out of bed, leaving the sheets messy and smelling like the wasabi crackers he munched on two days ago. He is hungry, so he bites into a protein bar before going through his own stretches. His body hurts like hell.


	2. Bad Decisions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> „If the world is ending, let's stay up all night.“ *

Sicheng’s study timer chimes twice and Sicheng gets up, grabs his water bottle to drink and has a bite of his energy bar. He moves his body through the same four minutes thirty seconds stretching routine he does every time he takes his scheduled breaks. Ten tries to keep his eyes on his own study books (Mandarin today), but his eyes follow Sicheng instead. Sicheng is in black pants and a white t-shirt, his hair still a little damp from the morning shower, but already combed into submission, smooth and shiny. Ten gnaws on the end of his pencil and tries to return to grammar lesson 36.B, but Sicheng’s timer chimes twice again and Sicheng sits back down, head bent over his English books. From his angle on the floor, Ten can see Sicheng’s shoulder blades pressing against the fabric of his t-shirt, can see the fluid muscles running down his back. Ten desperately needs to pull himself together. He sighs instead and bites down on the pencil until little chips of varnish stick to his tongue.

They have about another hour until they have to get ready for a WayV dance practice session. Ten sighs. He slept less than three hours the night before and his knee is throbbing. He is afraid he might have done serious damage to it in the past week, he really has to try and rest a little more. But every time he tries, images of him messing up during practice with SuperM pop up in his mind, unbidden and vivid, and he sneaks to his possibly-haunted basement practice room and convinces himself that all he does is getting some more practice hours in, even though what he really does is punishing himself and his body for being so fucking flawed.

Ten turns onto his back and stares at the ceiling. There is hardly any part of him that isn’t aching. His knee burns like fire and throbs as if it had its own, fucked up heart.

Sicheng quietly scribbles answers into his books. Ten really shouldn’t distract him from his studies. But he turns back around and crawls towards Sicheng. He plops down with his head under the small desk and pulls the yellow marker from his back pocket. Sicheng doesn’t flinch as Ten paints the first bright yellow flower onto the back of Sicheng’s left foot. He makes a small black dot in the middle and moves on to paint another flower, this one a little bit bigger. Ten doesn’t know how it happened, how Sicheng, who is not comfortable with touch and with others being in his space, how this shy and gently boy started to be so okay with Ten being close. With Ten touching his skin, drawing on him, hugging him, pressing his face into the crook of his neck to ward off nightmares.

Ten wishes he could cover Sicheng in flowers from head to toe. Flowers on his skin, on his clothes, on his sneakers, bright, happy colors hugging him gently. Sicheng used to protest a lot when Ten doodled on his skin, but now he kind of just stays quiet. Ten has even caught him looking at his doodles sometimes, a tiny smile tugging at the corner of his lips.

Sicheng’s pencil scribbles more answers, his body tense, his back nice and straight, posture impeccable as always. Sicheng is always so proper and so quiet and so composed.

Ten sits up on his knees and pushes Sicheng’s pants up a little to paint a few flowers onto his right shin. He makes them bigger and more detailed than the ones scattered on his foot. Sicheng’s skin is smooth and warm. Ten leans his head against Sicheng’s knee while doodling. He can feel the anxiety in his blood dull down a little, the tension leaving his abused muscles. Sicheng smells warm and clean, like late-night hugs and comforting words whispered into Ten’s hair when Sicheng thinks he has fallen asleep. Ten inhales deeply and concentrates on the warmth radiating from Sicheng’s skin.

“You’re like a cat,” Sicheng murmurs absentmindedly in mandarin, his fingers finding their way into Ten’s hair, gently carding through it, petting, petting. Ten closes his eyes for a moment and allows himself to lean into Sicheng’s touch, feeling a little out of breath and a little like he swallowed a good chunk of the sun.

Practice is bad, Ten’s knee wobbles worryingly and he has to half-ass some of the more challenging parts of their new choreo so he doesn’t injure himself even more. He’s pretty sure everyone notices, they glance at him with a mix of worry and confusion in their eyes. Maybe today is the day they all finally realize what a fraud he really is. Maybe today is the day they return to the dorm to talk about him in low voices, “I thought he was supposed to be good at this?” “What will people say when our group’s main dancer can’t even do the simplest moves right?” “Do you think he’s been faking it all this time?” “I can’t believe I ever thought it was a good thing they put him in the group with us.”

Things get infinitely worse when Ten and Lucas, after a shower and some protein bars, get to the SuperM dance practice. Ten is still aching all over and his knee hurts so bad he can feel the pain pulsing through his entire body. He tries to fake his way through it all, tries to blame it on being tired and a little out of it. He’s pretty sure no one believes him. Half-way through a strenuous move, Ten’s body finally gives out completely and he slams into a startled Taemin with enough force to send them both to the floor.

The hours after are fuzzy, all muted colors and sounds. Ten apologizes to Taemin, he sits out some of the practice, he gets ice for his aching leg. The others smile and are really nice to him, but he knows what they are really thinking. He knows they will kick him out of the project before it even debuts. Taemin and Kai and Baekhyun share glances every now and then, look over to where Ten is cowering, their eyebrows all worried. There is talking but Ten doesn’t hear much over the panicked screams inside his head. Lucas kind of carries him back to the dorms. Ten crawls into the bathroom, locks the door and sits under the shower, his clothes sill on, and tries to breathe.

They are going to know. He’s worked so hard to fool them all and now he’s ruined it all. They will find out just how much of a fraud he is. He is going to lose everything.

Everything.

His chest is too tight, it hurts to breathe. He tries to force air into his lungs, but his muscles won’t comply. Strange bright spots start to dance in the darkness and Ten closes his eyes to make them go away, but they flicker on the back of his eyelids, their movement so fast it makes his stomach lurch. Ten doesn’t know if he wants to breathe or throw up more badly. He curls in on himself, moves his knee in the process and white-hot pain splits the world in half. Oh God, he is going to suffocate under this fucking shower. Ten retches and gasps, his body convulsing. Something hard and smooth presses against the left side of his face. He thinks it may be the floor. Ten tries to scream for help, but all he manages is a voiceless croak. He opens his mouth wide, tilts his head to gasp for air, please, he needs to breathe he is going to die he is going to die – why won’t his lungs work? Why is the world spinning he needs to – he needs to breathe – breathe-

Ten cups his hands and breathes into them. Forces himself to exhale, even though everything in his being is telling him that he needs more air, not less, that he needs to inhale, not exhale. He closes his eyes and thinks of Sicheng flowing through his morning stretches, his breathing slow and controlled. Inhale. One. Exhale. One. Two. Three. Inhale. One. Exhale. One. Two. Three. Inhale. One. Exhale. One.

Two.

Three.

The world stops spinning as Ten continues to breathe into his hands, the warm water of the shower running over his quivering muscles, soothing.

He might not be dying.

He is not sure if he is elated or disappointed.

The anxiety still pumping in his blood feels like acid, like a force corrupting his body, his mind, his heart. Ten sits up slowly. He hugs himself, his arms crossed in front of his chest, imagines being held, rocks back and forth, back and forth, still breathing deeply. He imagines Sicheng in his never changing workout clothes, his hair soft, flowing through stretch after stretch. Inhale. One. Exhale. One. Two. Three. Inhale. One. Exhale. One. Two. Three.

Ten cries until he is utterly empty.

When Ten finally crawls under his covers, Sicheng is already in bed, the lights out, a small nightlight in the shape of a cute cat plugged into the socket next to Ten’s bed. Ten lies in the almost-darkness and listens to his mind tell him vicious things, conjure up terrifying visions of the future. About how disgusting he is. How flawed. How useless. ‘Shut up,’ he thinks, ‘please shut up, please, please, just for tonight, please let me sleep.’ He is so fucking tired. So tired tired and everything hurts so bad. ‘Serves you right.’ He wants a hug. He wants his mom. ‘She would be so disappointed if she saw how much of a waste all those expensive dance lessons were.’ He wants hot chocolate and a soft blanket. He keeps thinking about that movement he messed up, the one that made him collide with Taemin. ‘If you practiced more, that wouldn’t have happened.’ It may have been his knee, but if he had more core strength, he probably could have prevented falling. Ten quietly gets up and lies down on the floor next to his bed. He stretches his arms out above his head and starts a set of curl-ups. He feels bile rising in his throat and the world tilt strangely, swirls in a mess of colors Ten thinks may actually be all in his head. He drops his upper body back to the floor, breathes, then starts another set. His mouth tastes like iron. Another set. Ten’s ears start ringing like crazy, make him lose all bearings. It gets harder and harder to know where up and down is.

A hand presses against Ten’s back, right between his shoulder blades. “Stop, love,” Sicheng says in Thai. Ten leans into him, his body and mind instinctively responding to the sleep-heavy warmth of Sicheng’s body, the sound of his mother-tongue spoken so softly against his skin. Sicheng curls himself around Ten, cards his fingers through Ten’s hair gently, soothing, soothing. Ten curls himself into a tiny ball and sobs, broken and small, all fight leaving his body. He is so tired. He is so tired and so scared. He thinks he might be crying again. Sicheng pulls him even closer, rocks him back and forth slowly, the sleep-heavy warmth of this body a steady presence. Ten buries his head in the soft fabric of Sicheng’s t-shirt, inhales deeply. Sicheng mumbles comforting words against Ten’s skin, soft things, whispered over and over again until they are all Ten hears, thinks, feels. They leave no room for the vicious whispers of Ten’s mind. 

“Are you up for a movie?” Sicheng asks into the heavy silence that falls when Ten finally stops sobbing. Ten nods his head against Sicheng’s chest.

“Will you show me the movie with the white dragon and the red bathhouse?” Sicheng’s voice is quiet and deep.

“Really?” Ten asks.

“You said it was an offensive gap in education that I have never seen it,” Sicheng says, trying for humor but clearly too concerned to laugh.

“It is,” Ten huffs. Sicheng helps him up, careful not to twist his knee in any way that might hurt Ten further. How he knows just how to support his body, Ten doesn’t know. Sicheng grabs Ten’s iPad from the bedside table and props it up on the mattress. He stretches out next to Ten, wraps one arm around him and pulls him close. Ten rests his head on Sicheng’s chest, snuggles up as close to him as possible, until they are touching head to toe. Sicheng rests his chin against the crown of Ten’s head. When the first few chords of the opening theme start playing, Sicheng tilts his head a little to hide a tiny kiss in Ten’s hair. The familiar music and the warmth around him transport Ten back to a time when he was much younger and much more carefree, when he still believed in his dreams and in magic.

Sicheng falls in love with Spirited Away, just as Ten knew he would. Halfway through the movie, Sicheng disentangles their limbs and gets a bag of Ten’s favorite spicy Thai crackers from the kitchen.

“I’ve never eaten in bed,” Sicheng admits when he tears the bag open and holds it out to Ten. He laughs when Ten looks at him, horrified. “It makes so much mess, you’re not supposed to make messes,” Sicheng mumbles in a half-assed defense he doesn’t really seem to buy himself. Still, it looks like it takes him a little courage to dip his fingers into the bag, pop the first cracker into his mouth. Ten huffs out a laugh and whispers a sarcastic ‘so brave’ under his breath before he burrows against Sicheng again, his mouth full of spicy crackers. Sicheng holds the bag carefully, chews so quietly it should be impossible, and tries really hard not to spill any crumbs onto Ten’s bed.

It may be mostly Ten’s fault, but when the bag of crackers is finished, his bed is full of crumbs anyways. It makes his lips tug up at the corners. He lets the smile bloom on his face, warmth spreading in his veins, chasing away the remnants of acid fear. He feels so giddy and so young, he can’t help reaching up and mussing up Sicheng’s hair, laughs when a horrified Sicheng yelps in protest.

Sicheng is so invested in the movie, he starts cheering on the young protagonist, claps all happy and elated any time she makes a decision that brings her closer to overcoming her fears. Ten grabs a lavender colored marker from his bedside table, setting off an avalanche of colors and knick-knacks in the process that he ignores. While the flickering lights of the movie play over Sicheng’s skin, he starts doodling little flowers onto Sicheng’s forearms, tiny specks of color and happiness that wrap around his arms, all the way up into the sleeves of his t-shirt. He sprinkles a few flowers onto Sicheng’s neck, his hands, hides one behind his ear. Sicheng holds very still, his eyes glued to the iPad screen.

When the movie ends, Ten feels calm and warm and happy in a way he hasn’t been in a long time. The world feels a little more magic, dreams a little closer to reach. Sicheng searches a soft piano cover playlist of the movie’s soundtrack and gets up to open the window wide, letting in the sound of the rain outside. The air smells like thunderstorms, electric and buzzing with energy, like petrichor and summers long gone, like home, like magic. They stretch out on Sicheng’s bed (because there are too many cracker crumbs in Ten’s), tangled up in each other. Sicheng touches his fingers to the small flowers Ten drew on his skin, wonder in his eyes. He takes a deep breath and admits how much he misses dancing the way he learned, the way that is in his blood, all fluid moves and long lines. Ten closes his fingers around Sicheng’s hand.

“I even miss school sometimes,” Sicheng whispers. “It was horrible most of the time. Really bad. But,” he shrugs, “but there were rules there, and the felt so safe and clear, you know?” Sicheng very rarely talks about his time in the academy. From what Ten gleaned, teaching methods there involved physical and verbal abuse and immense pressure that ingrained obedience deep into Sicheng’s heart, a terror for breaking the rules, for speaking his mind, for being himself.

“I really miss the routine. And the way we danced there. It’s like that is my mother tongue and all I have to do here is a foreign language to my body.” Ten had no idea Sicheng felt like that. “It makes me feel all wrong inside of my skin, like I don’t even really know how to dance at all.” Sicheng sounds so frustrated and so angry at himself. “How did you learn so many different styles of dancing,” he asks Ten, “how does it come so natural to you?”

Ten looks at Sicheng, incredulous. “I feel like the biggest fraud,” he blurts out, “like I shouldn’t even be here, like I will never measure up, like you guys will kick me out any time now.”

Ten has never admitted these things out loud. It should scare him, to show this terrifying side of himself to anyone, but there is so much magic in the air and Sicheng looks so honest, so warm and so soft, that he cannot find it in him to be scared. He admits that his knee hurts again, that he has been pushing himself way too far. Listens to Sicheng tell him about his own worries, his fears, the way he believes he will never really find his bearings in the idol world, so far away from home and everything he knows.

The lavender flowers covering Sicheng’s skin shimmer in the lights of the city at night, look almost translucent, magical tattoos on a magical boy. His messy hair sticks up in all directions, tiny pinpricks of light glowing in his dark eyes. Ten thinks Sicheng is the most beautiful thing in the world. He is so, so in love.

They talk, wrapped up in each other until they finally fall asleep to the soft sound of the rain and the music still playing.


	3. Warmth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Hold me in this wild, wild world. 'Cause in your warmth I forget how cold it can be" *

Ten wakes up to a cool breeze as the blanket lifts for a moment, the soft chimes of Sicheng’s alarm waring with the music of his dreams. Ten blinks his bleary eyes open, it feels like he didn’t sleep nearly long enough and his mouth tastes like stale crackers. He is lying in Sicheng’s bed. While Ten waits for his brain to clear of the cobwebs spun by dreams and sleep, he watches Sicheng go through his morning stretching routine. Now that he knows how worried Sicheng is, how much he misses the routine and the clear rules of his previous life, it feels like Ten is watching something very private. Something that will get Sicheng out of bed in the morning, help him ward off the worst of his anxiety before he has to face the world. The tiny lavender flowers all over Sicheng’s skin dance as he moves, shimmer in the morning light, pale and beautiful. Ten’s alarm beeps just as Sicheng is pulling his leg up into a deep split. Ten grapples for his phone, silences the alarm.

“Good morning,” Sicheng says in Thai. Ten says it back in Mandarin. Sicheng smiles at Ten in the dim light and Ten has to bury his face in his pillow.

Ten is almost fully awake when Sicheng comes back from his morning shower, smelling like green leaves and spring. The flowers have washed off his skin, leaving behind a smooth, empty canvas that makes Ten’s fingers itch. Sicheng has changed into black jeans and black socks, is still wearing his white sleep-shirt.

“Hey, I am all out of T-shirts,” he says in front of the open closet they share, even though they can both clearly see the drawer of clean, white shirts in front of him. “Can I borrow one of yours?”

Ten makes an affirmative sound because his heart gets twisted in his throat and he cannot seem to use real words.

Sicheng smiles and pulls a long-sleeved shirt from Ten’s half of the closet, the exact shade of lavender that covered his arms and neck and hands the night before. He pulls up his sleep shirt and Ten tries to look away, but his eyes stay on the lean muscles of Sicheng’s back and shoulders while he changes. When Sicheng turns around, Ten’s cheeks are burning. He tries to crack a joke, but it dies in his throat. The color looks stunning on him, he looks like spring, like candy and flowers and the sky just after sunrise. Sicheng smiles at Ten, all shy and happy, and leaves to have what Ten is assuming is his terrible, bland breakfast.

*

Ten gets two days of rest for his knee before another scheduled day of back to back WayV and SuperM dance practice. He thinks he should tell the managers that his knee is getting worse every day, that he needs true rest, that someone should probably look at his injuries. But he doesn’t. Practice is hell, but he has learned long ago to compartmentalize his pain, to push through and use the exhaustion to fend off his worries. He stumbles back to the dorm late that day, a strange ringing in his ears, the world all fuzzy around the edges. He tries to blink away the strange dark spots that make it hard to see.

Ten sits down on the hallway floor to pull off his shoes as soon as he is back in the dorm. The floor is cool and smooth and inviting. His bed seems very far away and sitting down makes the ringing in his ears a little more bearable. So he decides to lie down just for a little while before he gets up to go shower and sleep. The soft fuzziness in his head is a nice pillow, his knee hardly hurts even though he knows it was killing him earlier during practice. The world tilts, until there is a dull thud that sounds like a head hitting a hard surface. Liquid warmth spreads beneath him, it feels nice against his throbbing temple. Ten is too tired to think about what it means. Instead, he closes his eyes so he won’t have to see the strange dark spots anymore. Instead, he dreams of a magic boy wrapped in the pale lavender light just after sunrise.

*

Ten comes to lying on the cold floor of the dorm hallway, his head is throbbing like crazy and strange spots seem to have eaten away some of the world around him. His body aches, everywhere, his arm pins and needles, trapped below his body. His first thought is: I deserve this. It was hard, seeing everyone itching for practice to continue while they waited the mandated two days of rest for Ten’s knee. It was hard feeling his body unwilling to move the way he knows it should be when they finally got back to the practice room. He knows the others have had injuries, too, knows how much pain Taemin and Kai have both endured, have danced through, a professional smile on their faces. He knows both of them would not be this bothered by a simple aching knee – an old injury that should be all healed anyway. They would probably laugh it off if they were in his body, would shake their leg a little backstage, then straighten their backs and get to work.

But Ten, Ten is curled up on himself and everything smells like rust. He pulls himself into a seated position and tips forwards right away to throw up the contents of his stomach. Bitter bile mixes with the rust in the air.

Shower, his mind supplies, you need to get to the shower and go to bed. Sleep it off. Shake it off.

He vomits again, excruciating pain splitting his skull. His stomach contracts until he is throwing up nothing but disgusting bile.

There are footsteps in the hallway, he hears a soft, familiar voice curse in beautiful mandarin. A knock on wood, voices. Low, low, too low for him to understand over the howling in his head.

Kun’s face appears in front of him. His face is pale and worried in the dim light of the hallway.

“I’m going to lift you for a second, okay?” He says before he picks Ten up with an ease that seems at odds with how heavy and strange Ten’s body feels. “God, you are so fucking skinny, Ten-Ten,” Kun says under his breath, the words laced with worry.

It hurts like hell to be moved like this, Ten thinks he might have to throw up again. He closes his eyes and curls in on himself, buries against the warmth of Kun’s chest.

The world moves and becomes softer. Ten keeps his eyes closed because that pacifies the pain in his throbbing head a little.

Warm fingertips touch his temple, featherlight, and then a cool, wet cloth touches his face, washing away crusty salt around his eyes, the drying rust of blood on his temple, touches his lips to wipe away the sticky bitterness of bile. Ten sighs deeply. A pause, then cool wetness again, pressed to his forehead. It feels heavenly.

“Drink,” Sicheng says quietly enough not to enrage the headache even more.

Ten obeys, sips through the straw between his lips, swallows some of the water that is just warm enough not to upset his stomach further.

Sicheng says something in Mandarin that Ten doesn’t catch, so he switches to Korean. “A doctor is on their way,” he says.

Ten shakes his head, stops when that makes pain explode behind his eyes. “Don’t need one,” he says. His voice sounds like he swallowed fire. His body shivers involuntarily. Dimly he thinks he must have been on the hallway floor longer than he remembers. He just got home, didn’t he?

The bed dips a little, and Ten curls into Sicheng’s warm body as Sicheng pulls a blanket over them. Sicheng smells warm and clean, like green leaves and spring, like all of Ten’s dreams. “Please stay,” Ten whispers on a sob. His eyes feel strange and hot. “Please.”

Sicheng smoothes his palm down Ten’s bare arm, slowly, slowly, gentling the panic threatening to swallow Ten whole.

“Please no doctor, I’m fine,” Ten whispers. Sicheng continues his gentle, even movements, his hand dry and warm and familiar on Ten’s skin. Ten’s cheeks are wet, his lashes weird and sticky. “I’m fine,” he says again, his fucked-up voice blurring the words until they are barely words at all.

“No one will think less of you,” Sicheng says right against his ear. “Nobody judges you as harshly as you judge yourself.” His breath ghosts over Ten’s skin. “Please, when I found you I thought you – there was blood and you looked like you were throwing up your soul.”

“’m fine,” Ten says, but this time he thinks he is not really saying words at all, his brain and his throat too messy.

“You are worth being looked after,” Sicheng whispers. “You can rest, please, and heal, everything will still be there when you are better.” Ten’s stupid chest won’t stop hiccupping, it shakes his body so bad, it hurts so bad, so bad. “I promise,” Sicheng says with conviction Ten thinks is unwarranted, “I promise.”

Taeyong and Kun arrive with a stern-faced doctor, they both look shaken. Sicheng sits up and makes room for Ten to be examined, never goes far, close enough for Ten to inhale his scent, familiar and comforting. The doctor shines a bright light into his eyes until Ten nearly vomits again, his headache all he can see and taste and feel. Touches to his shoulder, his head, his knee, Cold air against his clammy skin, harsh words.

They take him to the hospital, though the only thing Ten will remember about the trip afterwards is the unfamiliar finality in Sicheng’s unwavering voice as he makes clear he will be coming with Ten. Ten thinks he has never heard shy, gentle Sicheng sound anything like that.

And then a grey tube that rotates and makes Ten’s headache worse with its thunderous noise. Blood being drawn from the soft crook of his elbow, bright red. Mint walls, white sheets. Beeping things. Sicheng in one of Ten’s sky-blue t-shirts, holding his hand. Clear liquid dripping into his arm. Dark brown eyes glittering with bright light, worried. Pale skin, familiar, dark purple circles underneath Sicheng’s eyes, worried, worried. A white coat and a stern face, “rest”. “weeks.” A deep blue bandage around his knee, grey plastic crutches. “Weeks.” “Weeks.”

The first few days of Ten being grounded are very, very tough. Ten feels so stupid for not taking better care of his body, and at the same time like such a loser for needing a break, for being injured in the first place. He is not banned from vocal practice at least, and the managers have jostled around his schedule to make the most of his “free” time and get some extra language and vocal practice in. Still, he feels utterly useless and defeated. And his body fucking hurts so bad. He wakes up, though, every morning, to the soft whoosh of Sicheng’s blanket, watches as Sicheng flows though his stretches, so familiar and clean, never changing. Sicheng still sleeps in black pants and a white t-shirt, still only says “good morning” when Ten’s alarm chimes. Ten tries to eat more regularly, the doctors were pretty stern about that. So while Sicheng showers and gets dressed, Ten does his own stretches – modified by company physiotherapists to ensure his knee heals properly and he loses as little muscle and flexibility as possible.

They sit down at the kitchen island together and eat breakfast in companionable silence. Sicheng eats his bland, bland food and drinks a black coffee, while Ten tries a new flavor of oatmeal every day. While they eat, Ten tries to see if another new color has appeared on Sicheng – in his clothes, his shoes, his jewelry. Sometimes it’s a tiny embroidered flower on his sneakers (does he do those himself?), sometimes it’s a little ruby on one of his rings. And then, some days, he is wrapped in a sweater the color of poppy flowers, or a t-shirt in bright green coveted from Ten’s dresser.

After, Ten usually leaves for physiotherapy, and while his body aches and aches and aches, he thinks of the little things that have been changing between Sicheng and him for months now. He thinks he might be insane, that it must be wishful thinking. But his stupid heart really doesn’t care. Sometimes, when he closes his eyes, he sees Sicheng smiling, light reflected in his eyes, he smells the scent of Sicheng’s skin, lingering in the clothes he borrows from Ten. Most of his thoughts are bad ones, though, sad ones, about his knee and being grounded, about how Taemin would surely have just gritted his teeth through this, how he should be tougher, stronger, about how much he is failing, how he is letting everybody down.

*

It takes Ten two full weeks to understand that he desperately needs a way to vent his frustration. He has snapped at Yang-Yang for what feels like the thousandth time in one day over something insignificant and the true hurt in Yang-Yang’s eyes is what finally does it. Ten exhales slowly, pulls Yang-Yang in for a tight hug, apologizes.

“I’m sorry. I’m letting my anger and frustration out on you, it’s unfair, you don’t deserve this,” he whispers into Yang-Yang’s shoulder. They stay like that for a little while and when he pulls back, Ten decides he will have to find a way to deal with the shit inside his head before he becomes too much for anyone to handle. Yang-Yang smiles sadly and tells Ten it’s okay, that he knows Ten must be hurting. But it’s not okay, he can’t just make everyone around him miserable because he is.

It takes a little convincing and some serious talks with managers and important looking people Ten has never seen before, but they finally decide to let him rent a little studio space not far from the dorms. It is quite bare, with high windows, drowning in natural light. Perfect to dance in, to fly in, his stupid mind supplies. But perfect for paining, too. And that’s what he does. He moves in a few blankets and cushions to sit on, some light to illuminate the space after sundown, but most of the space stays empty, empty enough to scream to be filled with art. Ten starts with drip-paintings – messy and bright and colorful, crazy flowers and dragons dripping in green and blue and red and yellow.

Sicheng timidly asks if he may visit Ten’s studio one night, after they have turned off the lights and Ten is trying to go to sleep despite the howling in his head and his heart.

“Of course.” Ten says it like it is a fundamental truth, like saying “the sun is hot”, because it is. Because he wants Sicheng in his space, he wants him in his life, in his heart, in his everything. Because no matter how dark a place his head might be, how much he might be hurting, he still knows that he is crazy in love.

Sicheng brings a gift, the wonderful, well-behaved idiot that he is. He stands in the doorway to the studio with a small, happy potted flower in his hands, looking unsure of himself, afraid and excited both.

“Thank you for inviting me here,” he says politely and Ten bites his lips to quell the unbearable urge to kiss his stupid face. He wants to say: You are always welcome here, wants to say: Please be mine. What he says instead is: “You are such an idiot.”

They both giggle awkwardly and Ten takes the flower, sets it down on one of the window-sills, vowing to try and take care of it. Sicheng turns and turns to take in the art plastered on the walls with tape, the works in progress on the floor and the easel. When his eyes land back on Ten, he looks like there are words in his heart that are too big to say.

Sicheng watches Ten paint for a while, stretched out on a blanket like a lazy cat in the sun, his skin looking warm and smooth and distracting. They talk while Ten paints, about things that matter and things that don’t, until Ten is covered in paint, colorful freckles everywhere, and some of the tension in him has bled away. His knee still hurts a lot, but the medication the doctors prescribed helps. Still, he tries to alternate between sitting and standing, never putting too much strain on his knee.

“This place would be perfect for dancing, too, right?” Ten asks when the sun has almost set. Sicheng looks like something from a story, made of gold and shadows in the light of the sunset. He sits up and takes in all of the empty space that Ten knows must be calling to him the way it is calling to Ten. To be filled – with art and magic and movement.

“You can if you want to, you know?” Ten whispers. A secret, stupid part of him hopes that Sicheng will decline, that he will not have to see someone else move fluidly, the way Ten aches to. But that part is drowned out by the overpowering wish to see Sicheng in his element, to see him fly.

“Maybe some other time,” Sicheng whispers into the charged silence that falls between them.

“Then will you tell me a story instead?” Ten asks. There are so many stories inside of Sicheng, stories of emperors long gone and beautiful princesses in silk and flowers, of warriors, dragons and spirits. Legends, all of them, tales as old as time and told so often they have become magical. Sicheng can tell those stories with his body, make you hold your breath and fall head-first into an adventure older than the sea. But he can tell them in words, too, something Ten discovered only a little while ago – they were shooting a music video staring a child, a child who got bored and a little lonely during set changes and lunch breaks. To everyone’s surprise, it had been Sicheng who had hunkered down and asked the little boy if he wanted to hear the story of a brave warrior who tamed the spirit of the most powerful dragon in all of history.

Sicheng nods and smiles, all shy. He seems to think about it for a while and then his voice changes, becomes soft, far away, the words flowing like water. While Ten paints, Sicheng tells him the story of the goddess of Creation, of four dragon-kings sent to rule over the four oceans, of beautiful underwater palaces made of crystal and light, covered in rainbow colored shells that shimmer in the morning sun, of rose colored coral gardens and legions of sea creatures. After a while, Ten abandons his painting and moves to sit next to Sicheng. While he tells the story of one of the dragon kings, Ten starts to paint on Sicheng’s skin instead of the lifeless canvas abandoned on his easel. The story is filled with too much life and too much magic to be trapped on cold cloth.

Sicheng’s voice doesn’t change, the flow of his words continues all smooth and clear, when Ten paints the first line of ink across his forearm. He doesn’t stop talking while Ten paints dragon kings and warriors of old, fantastical sea creatures and beautiful underwater gardens on Sicheng’s skin. Ten tries to capture some of the magic of Sicheng’s story in painting, adds color and light and strange, twisted shapes to the empty spaces between dragons and crystal thrones. When he runs out of space, he lifts Sicheng’s t-shirt, waits for him to protest and pulls it off when he doesn’t. A palace of light and glass takes form on Sicheng’s chest, his stomach, waves twist around his shoulder blades and drip down his back. Ten follows the lines he makes with his fingers, gently brushes over warm skin and taut muscle, feels the small thorns of Sicheng’s spine pressing against his fingertips. He paints seashells on Sicheng’s neck, dancing on his collarbones and touches his fingers to those, too, feels the rapid pulse beating beneath Sicheng’s skin. Sicheng leans in, his words now barely a whisper. Ten can feels Sicheng’s quick breath ghosting over his skin, feels the heat of his body so close. So close. Sicheng smells like green leaves and spring and Ten wants to ask: When did the scent of your skin become the scent of home? But he bites his tongue. He runs his hands over the magical story he has painted, touching everywhere, everywhere, his fingers shaking. He feels set on fire, like he is breathing an electric storm, lightning in his veins. I love you, he thinks, and I am so scared. But he doesn’t say a thing.

**Author's Note:**

> * All lyrics quoted at the beginning of the chapters by Bastille <3


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